Old European culture

Monday, 5 February 2018

In Chinese philosophy, yin and yang, literally dark and bright, describe how seemingly opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another.

Yin is characterized as slow, soft, yielding, diffuse, cold, wet, dark, and passive; and is associated with water, winter, north, earth, the moon, femininity, and nighttime.

Yang, by contrast, is fast, hard, solid, focused, hot, dry, bright, and active; and is associated with fire, sky, summer, the sun, masculinity and daytime.

Duality is found in many belief systems, but yin and yang are parts of a Oneness that is also equated with the Tao. The term "dualistic-monism" or dialectical monism has been coined in an attempt to express this fruitful paradox of simultaneous unity/duality. Yin and yang can be thought of as complementary (rather than opposing) forces that interact to form a dynamic system in which the whole is greater than the assembled parts. Everything has both yin and yang aspects. Either of the two major aspects may manifest more strongly in a particular object, depending on the criterion of the observation. This constant balanced interplay of yin and yang is known as "Taiji". The concept of Taiji is first found in written sources in works of Zou Yan (305 – 240 BC) who was an ancient Chinese philosopher best known as the representative thinker of the Yin and Yang School (or School of Naturalists) during the Hundred Schools of Thought era in Chinese philosophy..

Taiji is graphically represented by the symbol known as "Taijitu" or "Taiji tu" meaning Taiji symbol, which is more commonly known simply as Yin - Yang symbol:

Yin is the black side with the white dot in it, and yang is the white side with the black dot in it.The oldest preserved drawing of this symbol in China appears in the works of the Song era philosopher Zhou Dunyi (1017–1073 AD), author of the "Taijitu shuo" (Explanation of the Diagram of the Taiji), which became the cornerstone of Neo-Confucianist cosmology. His brief text synthesized aspects of Chinese Buddhism and Taoism with metaphysical discussions in the Yijing. What is the origin of this symbol?

In a work entitled "A Geomedical Approach to Chinese Medicine: The Origin of the Yin-Yang Symbol" which was published in 2012 by Stefan Jaeger, we can read that:The Yin-Yang symbol is tightly connected with the annual cycle of the earth around the sun,and the four seasons resulting from it. Using the gnomon , a pole stuck in the ground the ancient Chinese were able to record precisely the position and the length of the sun’s shadow throughout the solar year.

This enabled them to precisely determine the length of the year, which they found to be about 365.25 days. Furthermore, they divided the circle of the year into segments, including the vernal equinox,autumnal equinox, summer solstice, and winter solstice. In addition, they used concentric circles around the pole, helping them to record the length of the sun’s shadow every day. As a result, they measured the shortest shadow during the summer solstice, and measured the longest shadow during the winter solstice. After connecting the measured points and dimming the part that reaches from summer solstice to winter solstice (Yin), they arrived at a chart like this one:

The resemblance between this chart and the modern Taichi-tu or Yin-Yang symbol is striking. This diagram provides visual evidence that the original Yin-Yang symbol describes the change of a pole’s shadow length during a year. This corresponds well with the meaning of "Taiji" in Chinese which is "Great pole"...Now this is an amazing explanation for the origin of Taiji. Except that there is one problem with it. The above Taiji like shadow diagram shows the shadow change at the 70° latitude north. Latitude represents the angle from the equator. Now this is the globe with some of the latitudes marked on it.

The Arctic Circle lies at the latitude 66° 33´.

So the only way Ancient Chinese astronomers could have gotten the Taiji like shadow diagram would have been if they had their gnomon stuck into the ground somewhere in northern Siberia. Which is highly unlikely to have happened. If they had their gnomon stuck into the ground anywhere in China, the resulting shadow diagram would have looked something like this:

I mean you can see the resemblance to the Taiji symbol but it is definitely far away from this, shadow diagram at the 70° latitude:

Anyway the thing is, the article is right in one thing:

The Yin-Yang symbol is tightly connected with the annual cycle of the earth around the sun, and constantly changing daily amount of light and darkness and the effect this change has on Earth's temperature.

In astronomy, axial tilt, also known as obliquity, is the angle between an object's rotational axis and its orbital axis, or, equivalently, the angle between its equatorial plane and orbital plane. Earth currently has an axial tilt of about 23.4°.

Earth's axis remains tilted in the same direction with reference to the background stars throughout a year (regardless of where it is in its orbit). This means that one pole (and the associated hemisphere of Earth) will be directed away from the Sun at one side of the orbit, and half an orbit later (half a year later) this pole will be directed towards the Sun. This is the cause of the lengthening of the day from winter solstice to summer solstice and the shortening of the day from summer solstice to winter solstice.

Now you would think that the earth's temperature would also increase from winter solstice to summer solstice and decrease from summer solstice to winter solstice. But this is not the case.

This is Sun's sunlight cross. It marks the transitional points on the sunlight cycle in the northern hemisphere:

1. Winter solstice - the shortest day and the longest night

2. Spring equinox - the equal day and night

3. Summer solstice - the longest day and shortest night

4. Autumn equinox - the equal day and night

This is Earth's, climate, vegetation cross as recorded in Celtic and Serbian calendar. It marks the transitional points of the climatic, vegetative cycle in the northern hemisphere:Celtic calendar:1. Imbolc- the beginning of the spring2. Bealtaine - the beginning of the summer3. Lughnasa - the beginning of the autumn4. Samhain - the beginning of the winter

Serbian calendar:1. St Sava - the beginning of the spring2. St George - the beginning of the summer3. St Ilija - the beginning of the autumn4. St Mitar - the beginning of the winter

As you can see the sun cross and earth cross are out of sync. The earth cross is rotated forward by 45 degrees and the earth circle cardinal points fall right in between the sun circle cardinal points. This is because the earth climatic, vegetative cycle lags behind the solar cycle.

I talked about this in detail in my post "Two crosses". At the end of that post I drew this diagram showing transformation of Sun's light cycle into Earth's temperature, climatic, vegetative cycle. The Sun cross transitions into the Earth cross. This transition is governed by the slow accumulation and release of the heat which is transferred from the Sun to the Earth through sunlight...

This is the never ending wheel of life...

And then two days ago while I was having a discussion about Celtic calendar, I had people say to me:"How can 1st of February, Imbolc, be the first day of spring? I have foot and a half of snow on the ground all around me and its freezing. This makes no sense..."I replied that the first day of spring is the first day of spring, not because it is warm, but because it can't get any colder. The 1st of February, actually the 4th of February, the real Imbolc, the mid point between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox, is the coldest part of the year on the northern hemisphere. This is due to the way the Sun - Earth system works. So even though on the day of the Winter Solstice the days start getting longer, they continue to get colder. Until the 4th of February, the mid point between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. From that day on, the Earth starts getting warmer.It is exactly the same on the opposite side of the year. The first day of autumn is the first day of autumn, not because it is cool, but because it can't get any hotter. The 1st of August, actually the 2nd of August, the real Lughnasadh, the mid point between the Summer Solstice and the Autumn Equinox, is the hottest part of the year on the northern hemisphere. This is again due to the way the Sun - Earth system works. So even though on the day of the Sumer Solstice the days start getting shorter, they continue to get wormer. Until the 2nd of August, the mid point between the Summer Solstice and the Autumn Equinox. From that day on, the Earth starts getting cooler.As I was writing this, something clicked. What I just wrote sounded very familiar. Very very familiar. And then something clicked. The Yin - Yang diagram.

The winter solstice, the beginning of the lengthening of the day, is the white dot in the middle of the black part of the diagram. It is the seed of light in the middle of the darkest part of the year. But even though the days start lengthening, the weather gets colder until the mid point between the winter solstice and spring equinox. Imbolc, the beginning of the spring and the time of maximum cold...The summer solstice, the beginning of the shortening of the day, is the black dot in the middle of the white part of the diagram. It is the seed of darkness in the middle of the whitest (lightest, brightest) part of the year. But even though the days start shortening, the weather gets wormer until the mid point between the summer solstice and autumn equinox. Lughnasadh, the beginning of the autumn and the time of maximum heat...This endless cyclical change of the duration of the day and night is what is seen as the endless cyclical interplay between the light (Yang) and darkness (Yin) which heats (Yang) and cools (Yin) the Earth and creates seasons and makes life possible.

This endless cyclical change is possible because of endless cyclical interplay between Father Sky (Sun) and Mother Earth which is at the core of the old European belief system.

In Serbian tradition the Father Sky and Mother Earth are known as:Father Sky:Dajbog - giving godDjed - grandfather, male ancestorTriglav - three headed male god. He consisted of Jarilo (sun as a young man), Vid (sun as an adult, husband), Perun (sun as an old man, grandfather).His characteristics were light, heat, dryness. He dominated the white (light, bright) part of the year and was most powerful in the middle of this period, at the end of the summer and the beginning of autumn which is the hottest and driest period of the year.Mother Earth:Dajbaba - giving goddessBaba - grandmother, female ancestorTroglava - three headed female goddess. She consisted of Vesna (earth as young girl), Mokoš (earth as an adult woman, wife), Morana (earth as an old woman, witch).

Her characteristics were darkness, cold, wetness. She dominated the dark part of the year and was most powerful in the middle of this period, at the end of the winter and the beginning of spring which is the coldest and wettest part of the year.

At their maximum power, both Father Sky (Sun) and Mother Earth are destructive. The Father Sky (Sun) on his own would turn the world int a dead hot dry desert (pure Yang). The Mother Earth on her own would turn the world into a dead cold wet desert (pure Yin).

It is the eternal dynamic interplay (Taiji) between the Sky (Sun) - (light, heat, dryness) Yang and the Earth - (darkness, cold, wetness) Yin, the intercourse between the Father Sky (Sun) and Mother Earth, which makes life possible. And this interplay is perfectly depicted by the Taijitu or Yin - Yang diagram.But is this all just a coincidence? I don't know, but I know that the Yin - Yang (darkness - light) symbol perfectly depicts only one process that I know of: This endless cyclical change of the duration of the day and night which causes endless cyclical change of the heating (Yang) and cooling (Yin) of the Earth. I don't really know any other system which behaves in the way described by the Yin - Yang symbol. Do you? If you do please let me know what that process is.

Very interesting right? Well here is something even more interesting. These are two granary "shrines" from Old European Cucuteni–Trypillia culture which thrived between 5200 BC and 3500 BC in Eastern Europe covering the region from the Carpathian Mountains to the Dniester and Dnieper regions, centred on modern-day Moldova and covering substantial parts of western Ukraine and northeastern Romania.

And this is the decoration engraved on the wall of one of these granary "shrines":

Is this the Yin - Yang symbol? And if it is, do you think the ancient Tripillian's tried to depict the same process that I just described? After all, granaries are only full because of the intercourse of the Mother Earth and Father Sky (Sun), Yin and Yang...And if the Tripillians already invented the Yin - Yang symbol during European Neolithic, is it possible that it was somehow transferred to the East over the following millenniums?Or maybe this is just a similar looking symbol which has nothing really to do with Yin - Yang symbol?

Sunday, 28 January 2018

God works in mysterious ways...Recently I published two articles related to Orion: "Bowls from Los Millares" and "Supernova". Both of them were talking abut artifacts, from Spain and Northern India, which depicted Orion linked with deer. These artifacts were dated to some time during the 3rd millennium BC. And it turned out that during the 3rd millennium Orion was best visible during the month of September, the month of the beginning of the deer rut (mating season). I thought that this was going to be the end of my dealing with Orion. But yesterday while I was browsing through the Etimološki rečnik Srpskog jezika 2, (Etymological dictionary of Serbian language) I came across this strange expression recorded in Vranje area of South eastern Serbia:Babine tojage - starsThe expression "babine tojage" literally means "grandmother's cudgels (clubs)".Now that is a very very strange euphemism for stars don't you think?These are stars:

And these are cudgels (clubs)

???

This made no sense to me. But at the same time I knew that at the time when this expression was first used to mean stars, this must have made perfect sense to everyone. So what did the Ancient Serbs see in the sky to make them start calling stars "grandmother's cudgels (clubs)"?

I started looking through Slavic ethnographic data that deals with astronomy and soon I found this:

The important bit is in bold: The constellation Orion was among the Russians known as "crooked, bent stick", among Bulgarians as "cudgels (clubs)" and among the Serbs as "grandmother's sticks"...This was very very interesting. But it still didn't make much sense. Here are some sticks (from my post about knobsticks):

And here is the constellation Orion:

So what is going on here?Orion is a prominent constellation located on the celestial equator and visible throughout the world. It is one of the most conspicuous and recognizable constellations in the night sky. But in mythology of many people from Eurasia, Orion was also imagined as a gigantic mythical hero hunter. One of the earliest written association of the constellation Orion and the mythical giant hero hunter is found in Sumerian mythology, where Gilgamesh, who as two third god - one third man, is associated with Orion. Golgamesh is described as a giant, armed with an axe, quiver and bow, and a sword. Just like this giant depicted on the so called Victory stele of Naram Sin:

Official explanation says that this giant figure is King Naram Sin defeating it's enemies. But the problem is that this figure is wearing horned helmet which was reserved for gods only...So I believe that this is Orion, Gilgamesh, depicted as a great demigod hunter. And in his right hand he is holding a staff, stick...This description of Orion as a bowman is also found in other civilizations:In Hittite mythology Orion is called Aqhat, and was believed to be a famous mythical hunter armed with a bow.In the Jewish tradition, Orion was thought to be a symbol of a king named Nimrod, who was a mighty hunter before the Lord (Genesis 10:9) also armed with a bow. In old Hungarian tradition, "Orion" is known as (magic) Archer (Íjász), or Reaper (Kaszás). In recently rediscovered myths, he is called Nimrod (Hungarian "Nimród"), the greatest hunter.

Chinese Astronomers knew Orion as Shen, a great hunter or warrior, one of the rare cases in which a constellation was visualised almost exactly the same way in China as in Europe. The arc of stars that we see today as Orion's shield was interpreted in China as a banner, Shenqi, or sometimes a longbow.

The Rig Veda refers to the Orion Constellation as Mriga (The Deer). It is said that two bright stars in the front and two bright stars in the rear are The hunting dogs, the one comparatively less bright star in the middle and ahead of two front dogs is The hunter and three aligned bright stars are in the middle of all four hunting dogs is The Deer (The Mriga) and three little aligned but less brighter stars is The Baby Deer. But in Egyptian mythology, the constellation Orion was associated with the god Sah. This the representation of this god from the panel from Dendera temple. The text above the god describes him as "Sahu, the soul (ba) of Osiris". Osiris the god of death... The god Sah holds in his left hand "was" staff, the staff o power and dominion.

And finally in Greek mythology, Orion was a giant huntsman whom Zeus placed among the stars as the constellation of Orion. But in Greek mythology, Orion was not armed with a bow, but with a club and shield. In Greek literature he first appears in Homer's epic the Odyssey, in which Odysseus sees him hunting in the underworld with a bronze club, a great slayer of animals.Here we see Orion brandishing his club and the shield of the Nemean lion, plus a sword hanging from his belt.

Soooo...Here we have Orion armed with a cudgel (club). And we also have Bulgarians calling Orion "cudgels (clubs)" and Serbs calling Orion "grandmother's sticks". This raises few questions:1. Why was Orion viewed as a hunter, and not just any hunter, but the greatest hunter?2. Why was Orion in Greek mythology armed with a cudgel (club)?3. Why do both Serbs and Bulgarians calling Orion "cudgels, clubs, sticks" plural?4. Why do Serbs call Orion "grandmother's" sticks?5. How is all this linked with the Serbian expression "grandmother's cudgels (clubs)" meaning stars?Well to answer all these questions we have to look at Orionids. The Orionid meteor shower, usually shortened to the Orionids, is the most prolific meteor shower observable from Earth. It occurs during the period October 2nd – November 7th but it peaks between October 20th and October 22nd. The meteors that streak across the sky are some of the fastest and brightest among meteor showers, because the Earth is hitting a stream of particles almost head on. They also often have long tails and exhibit distinctive colors before they burn up.

The particles come from Comet 1P/Halley, better known as Halley's Comet.

This famous comet swings by Earth every 75 to 76 years, and as it makes its way around the sun, it leaves behind a trail of comet debris which continues to move along the comet's orbit but a bit slower than the comet itself. Earth's orbit around the sun crosses paths with the debris orbit twice a year: in May when we see the Eta Aquarids meteor shower and in October and November when we see the Orionids meteor shower.

The Orionids are named after the direction from which they appear to radiate, which is near the constellation Orion (The Hunter). If you find the shape of Orion the Hunter, the meteor shower's radiant (or point of origin) will be near Orion's club, slightly north of his left shoulder (the star Betelgeuse).

Ok, so this is where the "sticks" from "grandmother sticks" comes from... Orionid meteors look like sticks. They also look like arrows, so this is where the Orion bowman image comes from.

But why "grandmother's sticks"?Also, Orion is not the only constellation that has a meteor radiant point. The Meteor Data Centre lists about 600 suspected meteor showers of which about 100 are well established and are associated with constellations, such as Lyrids, Perseids, Geminids, Leonids...So why is only Orion constellation with its meteor shower associated with a mythical, giant, mighty warrior hunter? Well the shape of Orion constellation does look like a silhouette of a warrior. But only when we see it with imaginary lines added to the actual visible stars. When we only see the stars, this is what they look like:

How did this become a warrior with a raised hand brandishing a cudgel (club)? Well this is directly linked to the question why it is only Orion constellation which is known as "sticks" and "cudgels (clubs)"? And why do Serbs call all stars "cudgels (clubs)"? And what does grandmother has to do with all this?Well to answer these questions we need to look at what the cudgel (club) is. This is a cudgel (club).

It is a weapon used for smashing and killing the enemy or pray. It is a weapon of destruction used by killers. Which is what warriors and hunters are. So if Orion was seen as warrior and hunter armed with cudgel (club) he was seen as a terrible killer, destroyer.Now a harmless meteor shower, one of many identical harmless meteor showers, which produces few shooting stars, which admittedly do like sticks, once a year could not produce the image of a terrible giant killer armed with bronze cudgel (club). For that image to be created in people's mind, the things coming out of the Orionids radiant and rushing towards the earth, at 238,000 km/h, had to look like this:

Now this does look like a cudgel (club). This is a meteor which was seen burning over Glasgow in 2014. Luckily it was too small to reach the earth and cause any damage. But the one below was more like what people eventually started calling the "cudgels (clubs)" of Orion (the giant killer warrior, hunter). This is picture of the so called Chelyabinsk meteor impact.

You can see the impact and it's effect in this video. The Chelyabinsk meteor was a superbolide caused by an approximately 20-metre near-Earth asteroid that entered Earth's atmosphere over Russia on 15 February 2013. It quickly became a brilliant superbolide meteor over the southern Ural region. The light from the meteor was brighter than the Sun, visible up to 100 km (62 mi) away. It was observed over a wide area of the region and in neighbouring republics. Some eyewitnesses also felt intense heat from the fireball. Due to its high velocity and shallow angle of atmospheric entry, the object exploded in an air burst over Chelyabinsk Oblast, at a height of around 29.7 km (18.5 mi; 97,000 ft). The explosion generated a bright flash, producing a hot cloud of dust and gas that penetrated to 26.2 km (16.3 mi), and many surviving small fragmentary meteorites, as well as a large shock wave. The energy of the detonation appears to be equivalent to about 300 kilotons of TNT

Now this was a "20 meter" size rock, which came out of nowhere. Not something that would produce an image of a giant club wielding killer warrior, hunter. But definitely something that would produce an image of stars being actually cudgels (clubs). They normally face us head first, and it is their head that we can normally see in the sky. But every now and then, one of them will fall from the sky and hit the earth causing at least fear and at most terrible destruction and death. The effect a cudgel (club) strike would normally have in real life.

But what if at some point in time, a similar or even bigger size meteor, or meteors, came out of the Orionid radiant? They would all light up in the atmosphere and turn into giant burning reddish orange (the color of bronze) cudgels (clubs), and would eventually smash into the Earth causing catastrophic devastation and death.

And what if every year the same happened? Orion would appear on the horizon, and the next thing the giant cudgel (club) of Orion would smash down on Earth?

Now that would definitely create the image of a giant warrior hunter, giant killer, armed with a giant bronze cudgel (club).The veneration of Orion, the obsession with it's rising over the horizon, that started during the early Bronze Age and quickly spread throughout the world, can only be explained by a panic fear that people felt towards this "greatest of warriors and hunters"...But is it even possible that the Orionid meteors can ever be bigger than a speck? Well Orionid meteors are debris left behind the Halley's comet. According to the astronomers, Halley's comet has probably been in its current orbit for at least 16,000 years but it could be over 200,000 years old. This to me looks like they have no idea how old the comet actually is. Why this is important becomes obvious when we learn that based on the current estimates, the comet has so far lost 80-90% of it's mass. But was that over 16,000 or 200,000 years? The shorter the life of the comet, the more intense the shedding of the comet material has been.

In 1989, Boris Chirikov and Vitaly Vecheslavov performed an analysis of 46 apparitions of Halley's Comet taken from historical records and computer simulations. These studies showed that its dynamics were chaotic and unpredictable on long timescales. And based on results of these studies, scientist believe that Halley will evaporate, or split in two, within the next few tens of thousands of years. Now every time the icy comet gets close to the sun, it undergoes violent termo chemical reactions which cause its volatile compounds (those with low boiling points, such as water, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and other ices) from the surface, or near surface of its nucleus to begin to sublime (turn directly from solid to gas, explode). This causes the comet to develop a coma (comet tail), or atmosphere, up to 100,000 km across. Evaporation of this dirty ice releases dust particles, which travel with the gas away from the nucleus. Gas molecules in the coma absorb solar light and then re-radiate it at different wavelengths, a phenomenon known as fluorescence, whereas dust particles scatter the solar light. Both processes are responsible for making the coma (comet tail) visible. These sudden evaporations of the surface of the comet can cause breaking of the bits of the comet surface which then fly off into the coma and are left behind as s trail of comet debris which is the cause of the Orionid meteor shower.The question is how big can these comet crumbs be?Well most of them are tiny, not more than dust. But sometimes, for so far not well understood reasons, much larger bits break off the surface of the comet. And sometimes comets just disintegrate. Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 is named after two German astronomers who discovered the comet in 1930. For many years, its orbit and brightness was not regarded as particularly significant. However, in 1995 the comet became so bright that some astronomers thought that it was a new comet. 150 million miles from Earth, its bright display was far greater than anybody had expected.Then…in 1996, another unexpected event occurred.The comet appeared to have exploded into three pieces. Perhaps this disintegration was related to the continuing large brightening of the comet.In 2000, the comet continued to not only defy expectations with its bright display; but also cause surprise at its continuing disintegration. In 2006, its disintegration was accelerating. No one knows why this is happening. But imagine the debris left behind. Well you don't have to imagine it. Here it is, captured by Hubble telescope:

Imagine the devastating effect this debris would have if it hit Earth...Luckily, Earth does not cross the path of this comet. But it does cross the path or Halley's comet. And as I already said, that scientists are saying that the comet could at some point in the future split in half. Well then, it is entirely possible that at some point in the past, bits up to a half of the comet's size could have broken off and were left behind as the debris...The debris which continued to fly along the path of the Halley comet. The path which Earth crossed twice every year...Now that is quite scary. Scientists are saying that the current Halley's nucleus is relatively small: barely 15 kilometers long, 8 kilometers wide and perhaps 8 kilometers thick.And the comet has so far lost 80-90% of its mass???? Which means that the bits that could have at some time broken off the surface of the comet could have been huge.But do we actually have any proof that Halley's comet ever did shed big parts which could have caused the damage on Earth? Well it looks like we do.In the article "Why Halley's Comet May Be Linked to Famine 1,500 Years Ago" on Live Science website in 2013, we can read that:

The ancients had ample reason to view comets as harbingers of doom, it would appear.A recent study suggests that a piece of the famous Halley's comet likely slammed into Earth in A.D. 536, blasting so much dust into the atmosphere that the planet cooled considerably, by as much as 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius). This dramatic climate shift is linked to drought and famine around the world, which may have made humanity more susceptible to "Justinian's plague" in A.D. 541-542 — the first recorded emergence of the Black Death in Europe.Scientists from Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory have found large quantities of extraterrestrial stuff in Greenland ice core laid down between A.D. 533 and 540. Certain characteristics, such as high levels of tin, identify a comet as the origin of the alien dust. And the stuff was deposited during the Northern Hemisphere spring, suggesting that it came from the Eta Aquarid meteor shower — material shed by Halley's comet that Earth plows through every April-May.Ice core data also preserved record evidence of a volcanic eruption in 536, but, according to the Columbia University scientist, it almost certainly wasn't big enough to change the climate so dramatically. They have found circumstantial evidence of a meteor falling into the sea. The Greenland ice cores contain fossils of tiny tropical marine organisms — specifically, certain species of diatoms and silicoflagellates.An extraterrestrial impact in the tropical ocean likely blasted these little low-latitude organisms all the way to chilly Greenland, researchers said. And they believe the object responsible was once a piece of Halley's comet.Of the two brightest apparitions of Comet Halley, one of them is in 530. Comets are normally these dirty snowballs, but when they're breaking up or they're shedding lots of debris, then that outer layer of dark stuff goes away, and so the comet looks brighter.It's unclear where exactly the putative comet chunk hit Earth or how big it was. However, a 2004 study estimated that a comet fragment just 2,000 feet (600 meters) wide could have caused the 536-537 cooling event if it exploded in the atmosphere and its constituent dust were spread evenly around the globe...

Now this is very very interesting...In 530 AD Halley's comet sheds some big bits which is seen from Earth as the comet being particularly bright. 6 years later, Earth plows through the debris and, not exactly enormous piece, smashes into the Earth's surface, causing a widespread destruction and a nuclear winter...Is this why the appearance of the Halley's comet was considered as a bad omen? Especially if the comet was bright? Because our ancestors knew that every time a bright comet appeared, it was followed by a shower of deadly bronze cudgels (clubs). Now the destruction in the 6th century caused by a large meteor from the Eta Aquarid meteor shower shows that Halley comet did indeed in the past shed large parts. And everything points to the Orionid shower being the source of the deadly "space cudgels (clubs)".When did the Halley comet disintegrate? Did that happen only once? Did the mighty killer Orion only once strike the earth with his mighty cudgel (club)? Or was this a relatively common occurrence in the past, so common that it was actually expected to happen every year or every time Halley's comet came back? I believe that the Sky Giant has been awake for a long time, but that he became particularly angry around the end of the 4th millennium, and that his anger lasted until the end of the third millennium. During this time we have evidence of catastrophic climate changes, sudden ends of civilisations and mass migrations of people...I believe that during this time, the Sky Giant hit Earth several times with his deadly fiery cudgels (clubs). This is why Sumerians called Orion "URU AN-NA" meaning not "the light of heaven" as we can read on the Internet, but "the fire of heaven, the fiery object from heaven" because "ùru" in Sumerian means "watch fire; light; glowing, luminous object"The image of raging Orion with his fiery club was so terrifying that it has become the archetype for all the future Sky Gods in Eurasia and North Africa. No wonder the Egyptians called Sah, Orion, "The father of Gods"...I will talk about this in one of my next posts...

So we have answers to most of our original questions. Serbs called Orion "sticks" because small Orionid meteors look like sticks when they enter Earth's atmosphere. Bulgarians called Orion cudgels (clubs) and Serbs called all the stars cudgels (clubs) because large meteors entering the Earth's atmosphere look like giant cudgels (clubs) and these people preserved clear memory of these events in their language. Orion is seen as the might hunter armed with a giant bronze cudgel (club), because Orionid meteor shower, whose radiant is next to the "imagined" Orion's club, in the past produced large number of large meteors which looked like burning bronze cudgels (clubs) and which have devastated Earth many times...But why "grandmother's cudgels (clubs)"?These are Callanish standing stones on the Isle of Lewis.

According to our current knowledge, the standing stones are believed to have started being erected during the third millennium BC. Right during the time when I believe Orion the Sky Giant was at the peak of his rage. And what do these standing stones look like to you? To me they look like stone stick, stone cudgels, stone clubs. Meteors which fall out of the sky are giant rocks and some bits of those rocks actually survived the meteor impacts and were found by the people. And people being logical beings concluded that the giant burning cudgels, giant burning sticks that fell from the sky must have been made of stone. And in their fear, they crafted the effigies of these deadly stone cudgels, clubs, sticks and erected them towards the sky as a sign of veneration born out of desperation...In Serbian, the word "baba" used to mean mother, grandmother, midwife, any woman that has given birth, but today mostly means grandmother. So "babine tojage" today means "grandmother's cudgels (clubs)". Which makes no sense. However the word "baba" in the past also meant stone, rock, crag, boulder, mountain, Earth, Mother Earth, The Mother Goddess which was seen as a stony being which gives birth to all life...And it is this second meaning of the word "baba" which very much makes sense. Knowing this, the meaning of the expression "babine tojage" becomes "stone cudgels (clubs)" and the meaning of "babini štapi" becomes "stone sticks"...Stone cudgels, clubs, sticks, like the ones Orion threw from the sky. And like the ones people all over the world started making and raising towards the sky during the great rage of the Sky Giant...